‘I sent Uvarka out first thing to listen,’ came his bass voice after a moment’s silence. ‘According to what he says,
‘Are we off then?’ said Nikolay. ‘Come on in, and bring Uvarka.’
‘If that’s what you want, sir.’
‘Hold back on the feeding.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Five minutes later Danilo and Uvarka were standing in Nikolay’s big study. Although Danilo was not a big man, seeing him in any room was rather like seeing a horse or bear standing on the floor amongst the furniture and bits and pieces of human life. Danilo was conscious of this himself, and as usual he stood by the door and tried to speak as softly as he could and avoid all movement for fear of doing any damage in the master’s apartment. He did his utmost to get everything said as fast as he could so as to escape into the open air, to get out from under a ceiling and find himself back under the sky.
After asking all his questions and getting Danilo to concede that the dogs were fit (Danilo himself was dying to go hunting), Nikolay told them to saddle the horses. But then, just as Danilo was about to go, in tripped Natasha, not properly dressed, with her hair undone and covered with a big scarf belonging to her old nurse. Petya ran in with her.
‘Are you going out hunting?’ said Natasha. ‘I knew you were! Sonya said you wouldn’t go. I knew you’d never be able to resist it on a day like this!’
‘Yes, we are,’ Nikolay answered reluctantly. Today he wanted to enjoy some serious hunting and he didn’t want to take Natasha and Petya. ‘We are, but it’s only a bit of wolf-hunting. You’d be bored.’
‘You know that’s what I like best,’ said Natasha. ‘You’re awful – going off on your own, getting the horses saddled and not telling us.’
‘The Russians come and none shall bar the way!’ declaimed Petya. ‘Off we go!’
‘But you can’t. Mamma said you mustn’t,’ said Nikolay to Natasha.
‘Oh yes I am. I’ve simply got to!’ said Natasha brooking no resistance. ‘Danilo, saddle some horses for us, and tell Mikhaylo to hunt with my pack,’ she said to the huntsman.
Simply to be there in the room was a dreadful ordeal for Danilo, but for him to have any dealings with a young lady was beyond all bounds. He looked down at the floor and scuttled away as if all of this had nothing to do with him, desperately anxious to avoid inflicting any damage on the young lady.
CHAPTER 4
The old count, who had always maintained a magnificent hunt, had by now handed the whole thing over to his son, but on that day, the 15th of September, he was in a buoyant mood and he decided to ride out with them. Within the hour the whole hunt was assembled in front of the porch. Natasha and Petya wanted to say something to Nikolay, but he brushed past them looking serious and solemn, as if to indicate that this was no time for fooling around. He scanned the hunt from side to side, sent a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to go the long way round, got on his chestnut Don horse, and whistling up his own leash of borzois he set off across the threshing-ground and into a field leading towards the Otradnoye wood. The old count’s horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led out by a groom, while he himself was to drive over in a little trap and join the others at a prearranged place, a break in the covert.
Fifty-four hounds were led out in the care of six grooms and whippers-in. In addition to the family members eight men in charge of more than forty borzois were going out – there must have been about a hundred and thirty dogs and twenty horsemen in all.
Every dog knew its master and its call. Every man in the hunt knew what was expected of him, where to be and what to do. Once past the fence, they all moved along steadily with no noise and no talking, straggling back along the road and stretching out across the field leading to the Otradnoye covert.
The horses trod the field gently as if they were walking over a thick carpet, and splashed through puddles as they crossed the road. The misty sky still seemed to be trickling slowly and imperceptibly down into the earth, the air was still and warm, and not a sound disturbed the silence except for the odd whistle from a huntsman, the snort of a horse, the smack of a whip or the whine of a dog who had lost his place. When they had gone about three-quarters of a mile, five more riders with their dogs emerged from the mist coming towards them. In front rode a fresh-faced, handsome old man with a big grey moustache.
‘Morning, Uncle,’ said Nikolay as the old man rode up to him.
‘Fair for the chase! . . . I knew it would be,’ was ‘Uncle’s’ response. He was a distant relative who lived near by on modest means.
